Life after infertility – I know this is the place you never wanted to be. For years I never wanted to get to this point either, the place where I accepted that it would never happen. For so long, I wanted to be pregnant, I wanted to be a Mum; a parent. I wanted to be the same as everyone else, to be part of it, to be accepted, to nurture, cherish, be needed and wanted. It is the natural way of things. That feeling of desperation is overwhelming, it fills every waking hour of your day. It is exhausting and debilitating and, more than anything else, it is unfair. Over time, it is the unfairness that is all-consuming.
WHY ME?
Why me? Why not me? Why do those people get to see the two blue lines? Why do they get to choose the car seat, the buggy, the cot? Why do they get to join the club, without having to apply. Without any tests, exams, money. Why do they not have to suffer, or wait and wait and wait, month after month?
Truth is, of course, we don’t know why. It’s life. It’s cruel and unfair and very very sad. I spent 14 long years searching. If only the answer lay somewhere, on a website, somewhere hidden on the internet, it must be there. The word ‘infertility’ attracts us like bees to pollen. I spent years and years searching, hoping that somewhere, when I clicked on a new site, a golden ticket would appear and that would be it. You’ve Won! You found the golden ticket, it’s your time, your chance now. That didn’t happen to me and that’s why I’m here now, to tell my story and, hopefully, to help someone.
IS THERE A HAPPY ENDING?
And, I’m not going to build suspense, and leave the cliff-hanger until the end. I won’t make you scroll down to see, did it or didn’t it happen, just in case I have the magic answer or the reason for all this pain and sadness. Sadly, I’m heartbreakingly sorry to say, it didn’t happen. There’s no photo at the end of me holding two gorgeous bundles in pink and blue blankets. I never became pregnant.
Years later, there’s a tiny part of me that will always be sad, feel empty, unfulfilled and wronged. I won’t look into my childrens’ eyes and see myself, or a version of myself, or past generations of mine stretching back in time. It’s not because I haven’t passed on my genes, my sadness is that I will not have been pregnant; I’ll never know what it feels like to see two lines, to have a new life growing inside me. But, there it stops. There is life after infertility. I know because twelve years ago I made the decision to move on.